Page 75 of Starstruck

Those eyes rake up and down my body one last time before hemoves, pushes his palm against my shoulder and starts to walk away, into the shadows that were beginning to loom over the campus now the day had ended.

I don’t turn around to watch him.

I don’t flinch, or breathe.

And I don’t hold anything in as I walk over to the fountain, take aseat on the edge, and start to cry into my hands. I rest my elbows on my knees and cry, into my balled fists as they rest on my face. I think about that night and all the memories I promised myself I’d try to forget. They played in my head like a horror film.

The ache I felt in my body that night seemed to manifest in mybones, set along my veins and wrap around my lungs.

I was dying again. My life was slipping from my grasp.

And then I thought of Goldie, how I'd so nearly kissed her before, and wondered if she'd let me that close to her if she found out the truth. Wondered what she’d say.

She’d say I was a liar. That I wasn’t the person she thought I was,and made her see me as the person I didn’t want to be anymore. The type of person I warned her away from.

I didn’t want the girl I was slowly falling for, who I told myself Iwasn’t allowed to fall for, to find out I wasn’t the guy she’d trusted with the most vulnerable parts of herself.

Maybe I was an asteroid, but the thing about asteroids was thatthey stole light from the sun, draining its power as they orbited it. Goldie didn’t deserve someone who was going to poison her air and drain her from all the good that lived in her, just as much she didn’t deserve Henry’s underestimated destruction.

I adored that girl too much to lie to her. I wasn’t going to send thatfucker anywhere near her direction, or try and convince her he was an angel after I flipped on her and told her what a scumbag he was.

I didn’t know what to do, but as I sat there on the floor by thefountain, crying in the final minutes of golden hour, I tried to find ways out of this, tried a plot an ending where Goldie wouldn’t see me as the guy I never wanted to be.

But it was impossible, so much light couldn’t survive that muchdarkness, not without falling into the abyss itself.

.

chapter twenty three

dead silence

Tristan

Sunday at 17:03 PM

So, seeing as though we skipped the date part of our ‘date’ the other day, how about we try again? I’m free after Etiolle’s class on tomorrow?

Monday at 8:10 AM

Just ran into Finn and Jess, they said you weren’t feeling so good. If you need me, or want to talk, you know I’m here.

Monday at 13:01 AM

Is everything okay? How come you weren’t in class?

Tuesday at 18:34 PM

I'm in your neighbourhood if you want me to drop by the notes you missed yesterday?

Thursday at 20:43 PM

Finn told me you’re alive, so I suppose it’s just me you’re avoiding?

Friday at 11:07 PM

Have I done something?

chapter twenty four

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